Continuous Code Inspection - Advancing software quality at source

The benefits of finding and fixing defects early in the Software Development Life Cycle are widely acknowledged. These benefits are not limited to quality, but simultaneously have a positive impact on schedule and cost. There is a large body of evidence which demonstrates that rigorous Code Inspections (as supposed to ad hoc reviews) are one of the most effective ways to identify and remove defects, and they achieve this at the earliest possible stage in development. In this paper we identify three key areas which need to be considered in order to make Code Inspections practical and even more effective: the inspection criteria, the inspection process and the enabling tools which provide automation.